The task of harvesting nuts has always been a tiresome job since it requires picking up nuts from the ground under the nut trees. The back-breaking nature of the job has been the motivation for many past inventors to devise machines to do the job. In general these have been large cumbersome machines self-propelled or towed behind a tractor with belt conveyors to receive nuts swept from the ground and deliver the nuts to other portions of the machine for cleaning, sorting, classifying and bagging. Typical of such machines are those disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,679,133; 3,148,493; 4,364,222; 3,387,442; 3,475,889; 3,530,655; 3,579,969; and 3,591,948. These machines are all large production harvesters that might be used for a farm having hundreds of acres of nut trees. No one appears to have considered how to provide a harvester for a small producer who cannot afford to buy a large machine.
It is an object of this invention to provide a manually operable nut harvester. It is another object of this invention to provide a nut harvester that can be rolled over the ground to pick up nuts on the ground, and to deposit them in a collection bag. It is another object to provide a harvester for pecans that can be pushed over the ground like a lawn mower to pick up and bag the pecans. Still other objects will become apparent from the more detailed description which follows.